Straight On Til Evening
by Mede
Summary: And this is a way it could have happened, because fate is a river, not written on stone. A little boy met a stranger and escaped his unhappy home, toward the cracks in the world where magic crept through...
1. Beginning

A/N: This is a "what if" story—an attempt at taking canon and following one small change through new views of the world as the results cascade into a different path for Harry. I started this several years ago (which just goes to show how little I've been writing, as it's not that long), so the beginning may be a bit rougher than the end, but I chose to leave it as is rather than rewrite two thirds in an attempt to polish it. (This may be a sign I'm not a very good editor.)

I'll probably have the entirety posted within a week or so.

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Dawn tinted the horizon, already leeching away the night's coolness as Harry eased open the kitchen door and hefted a recycling bin over the stoop and out of range of the screen door's arc. Once outside he dragged it with less care to the curb, then turned to shuffle back inside, and stopped. Movement caught his eye in the shadows of the hedge beside the garden shed in the corner of the yard.

Harry looked around, then glanced warily at the Dursley house. Nothing else moved, so he skirted closer to the shed, trying to get a better glimpse of whatever was lurking near it. The shape seemed large for an animal, maybe as big as he was, and it cringed when Harry cautiously moved a branch to look closer.

"You okay?" he whispered, pulling his hand back. A weak hiss answered, and the figure huddled into itself even further.

Harry bit his lip, then carefully unlatched the shed door and pushed it open a few inches before creeping back into the house. The thing sounded hurt, and he could understand wanting to hide from the summer sun.

Trash and recycling pickup arrived and Harry got another couple hours' sleep before his aunt rose and sent him to bring in the empty bin, unaware he'd forgotten to set it out the evening before. Harry glanced at the shed as he passed by but didn't dare stop with his aunt glaring at him through the kitchen window.

The temperature that day reached punishing. Harry worked on his indoor chores at a glacial pace so he wouldn't get to the outdoor ones until after the sun was setting—better to finish late and get less sleep than melt into a shimmering puddle in the rose beds. Nor might his aunt monitor him as closely as usual when it was harder to see out.

A hiss greeted him when he slipped into the shed and cracked the door shut behind him, staying still as his eyes adjusted to the single line of afternoon light filtering in. The shed was crammed with various tools and gardening supplies that his aunt refused to store in the house, but eventually Harry made out an unfamiliar dark shape bundled in the barest corner.

"Hey," he whispered, crouching, without moving closer. "You hungry? I snitched one of the rolls Aunt Petunia's made for dinner."

He held it out, nearly insensitive to the warmth of the fresh bread soaking into his palm. The creature sniffed. A skeletal humanoid hand extended after a second and grasped his, turning it over and tugging weakly. Harry leaned closer, bemused, eyes straining to resolve shadows as the shape bent over the knuckle he'd scratched earlier climbing a tree to escape his cousin and... kissed it?

He hardly noticed a brief sting as his brain initially tried to interpret the liquid he felt as saliva because tongues were supposed to be wet and skin dry. Then it clicked, and Harry watched, mesmerized. Maybe it had lost blood when it was hurt, so it was getting more from him? He thought people in hospitals did that.

An engine rumbled and died in the driveway followed by a car door's slam. Harry jumped, jerking his hand back, and the creature started and growled.

"Uncle Vernon's home," Harry explained hurriedly, shoving the roll into its hand and brushing at the knees of his jeans. "I gotta go—stay quiet in here, okay?" He scurried back into the kitchen a second before his aunt returned from putting away his cousin's laundry and his uncle stumped into the foyer calling a greeting to his wife and son.

After dinner Harry started his outside chores, but his aunt and uncle sat out on the porch in the cooling air so he never dared to linger in the shed long enough to make them suspect anything was unusual. His aunt called him in at full dark and watched at the door while he put the tools away, then oversaw his efforts to clean himself up to her satisfaction before he was allowed to bed.

In the morning she made him start on his outside chores first since he hadn't finished them the day before, but it was bridge club day so she was too busy to do more than glance out the window every now and then with a brief scowl whenever she was in the kitchen refreshing drinks. Harry determined to work diligently despite the heat, hoping she would eventually lessen her supervision regularly.

There was litter caught in the street side of the hedge, which he collected and carried to the trash can. The first time he opened the shed door the creature in the corner hissed and flinched. Harry stepped inside and shut it behind him after a quick glance at the kitchen window, and as the light leaking in dimmed he saw the shape seem to relax. By touch he located a dirty tarp folded on a shelf and pulled it down, proffering it tentatively in the near-darkness.

"Use this to cover yourself?" he suggested. "I'll try not to come in too much, but I have to get stuff."

Something grasped the other end of the tarp; Harry let go and didn't hear it fall. He stood for a moment listening to plastic rustling, then when he'd waited as long as he dared whispered, "Bye," and slipped back outside, opening the door only just enough to squeeze through.

Most of Harry's morning passed weeding around his aunt's prized scraggly rose bushes. He worked barehanded despite the thorns, as usual, since the only pair of gardening gloves he'd ever found in the shed were too big to even stay on his hands. Around lunchtime he padded into the kitchen to retrieve the scant sandwich his aunt had set out for him, automatically moving to the sink to scrub first even though she wasn't there. Then he paused, staring at his scratched, dirty hands, and reached for the sandwich—then turned around again and ran the faucet for a moment anyway so it wouldn't look like he had disobeyed.

The tarp in the corner made no sound or movement when Harry slipped into the shed with his lunch, so he left the door just barely cracked so he could see a little as he sat down. "Hey. Need any more?" he whispered, holding out one bare blood-traced hand just short of actually touching the bundle.

He saw the thin hand appear, still unnaturally wizened, and strained his eyes to observe as the tarp rustled and sat up a little with an audible sniff. Harry had to fight the urge to giggle as cool papery skin ghosted all over his palm and fingers, suckling, bizarrely dry. When his hand was released Harry examined it in the line of light and grinned as he saw it was clean.

"Did you like the roll?" he asked, peering around, and frowned when he saw it discarded whole on the floor. "I've got a sandwich—you like chipped beef any better?"

The creature let out a short hiss and seized his other hand instead when he hesitantly proffered the meal. Harry let out a single unprepared giggle as the tickling recommenced, shifting the sandwich to his cleaned hand, but his attention had been diverted. Surely the thing needed to eat, didn't it? It had been hiding in the shed for over a day, and acted hurt—hurt things needed food to heal, didn't they?

Well, he reasoned slowly, if it had lost blood and was getting more from him maybe that was all it needed to heal, but wasn't it hungry? Maybe it only ate meat—but it didn't want the chipped beef, so maybe it only ate vegetables.

Harry remembered once when he'd gotten sick, and hadn't had the energy to eat for what felt like days. Maybe that was it—it needed to heal first.

Harry looked between the roll and sandwich and decided the sandwich would probably last longer, so he carefully replaced one with the other and swallowed the roll in three bites. "I have to get back to work," he sighed when the creature released his other hand, this time not even managing a smile as he observed both looking just-scrubbed. "Better cover up."

The tarp curled up, and Harry left, squinting as the sunlight hit his face after the cool gloom in the windowless shed.

Later in the afternoon as he was getting a drink from the hose it struck him that he'd never offered the thing water. He had to return the hose to the shed every time he was done with it, so the creature couldn't have used it during the night. Maybe that was why it was so dry...

"Hey," he whispered as he poked his head into the shed, concern overriding the possibility of his aunt seeing. "You thirsty?"

The tarp stirred and sniffed as he tugged the hose nozzle inside, looking for something to substitute for a cup. He found a rusty pail he'd never used before, and filled it carefully before backing out. "Sorry. See you later."

No punishment issued for the brief derivation from orders, so eventually Harry decided his aunt hadn't seen and resolved to replace the water as often as he could. He felt tireder than usual by the end of the day, but didn't have the opportunity to snitch anything extra from dinner or sneak out to the shed again as his aunt made up for his earlier freedom.

The sandwich was untouched when Harry slipped in the next day to add a few reedy carrots, and the water level in the pail looked to be not much diminished. He used the opportunity to lean against the closed door for a few minutes and catch his breath, trying to imagine he felt the sweat layered between his clothes and skin evaporate in the coolness.

The carrots also stayed where he'd left them all day. Finally Harry purloined a wedge of cheese from the icebox right after his cousin raided it, unable to come up with any other kind of food group the creature might rely on, then had to sneak straight out to the shed with it as his imagination circled around how fast it might start to smell and expose his theft.

That evening one of his aunt's friends rang her up for what Harry determined by eavesdropping was likely to be a marathon gossiping session, which he gratefully took advantage of. He felt like just crawling into bed and sleeping for the whole night and possibly next day, but worry sent him creeping past the living room where his uncle and cousin lounged in front of the television and outside.

The tarp hardly stirred as Harry cracked the shed door behind him and sank to the floor. Faint moonlight and the glow from the nearest streetlamps illuminated the tiny pile of food that nothing more than some ants seemed to want.

"You're not doing so good, huh," Harry whispered, feeling even wearier with discouragement. "Would more blood help?"

He extended one hand, even though the idea made him a little uncomfortable since he didn't have any new scratches this time—it would have to bite him or something. The creature's pale fingers appeared and loosely circled his wrist, drawing it under the edge of the tarp, and Harry relaxed as he heard and felt a steady rasp of softish dry tongue strokes. The prick of what was probably fangs hardly seemed to merit an afterthought.

"Can't you even try eating?" he asked once it released his hand, apparently finished. "You'd probably feel stronger..."

He tried offering a carrot, but the thin hand smacked it back to the floor and then grabbed his wrist again, tugging it under for another sting—and then let go. Harry backed up against the door, rubbing his wrist absently as he tried to figure out its meaning.

Blood and water were at least both liquids, so he'd thought maybe blood could somehow substitute for water, or maybe there was water in blood and that was why blood was liquid. But could it possibly substitute for water _and_ food? If food turned into blood then how come he ever had to go to the bathroom?

Well, maybe it was just different for the creature than it was for him. "Is that all?" he asked, still uncertain. "You really only need blood—not food or water or anything?"

The tarp didn't respond, but that was at least not a no. Harry glanced at the stale food and kept reasoning. He thought maybe he was tireder than usual because he'd been losing blood. He knew more food would make him feel better, and if he felt stronger he could keep giving blood, which would hopefully make the creature stronger too.

"Okay, then, if you're really sure... if I have this you can bite me again if you want?"

Again the tarp made no objection. Harry hesitated a moment, conscience slightly troubled by the lack of agreement, but another glance at the currently wasted food caved him. None of it had gone too off to digest, even the cheese, though it was a little ripe; he dusted each piece clean of dirt and bugs and ate as slowly as he could to to fill his stomach as much as possible. Once he finished he offered his wrist once more. The creature stirred, sniffed, and suckled for a moment before subsiding with a rustle of plastic.

"Hope it's really helping," Harry whispered. "G'night."

He carried another pilfered handful with him the next evening when he snuck in, which he sat and ate before offering his hand. "I figure if anybody notices me coming out here all the time and I have food they'll just think I'm hiding a dog or something. You think?"

The creature offered a sound that might have been a conversational grunt distorted by Harry's wrist in its mouth. After they both finished feeding they sat in silence for a little while, tarp and boy.

"I could call you Rover," Harry finally murmured. "If you wanna go with dog."

For a moment there was no response; then, with a minimal rustle, the creature underneath the plastic slowly pushed it back. Harry stared at a shape his brain insisted must be a person, even though he didn't think any human could have such smooth spindly hands or eat blood instead of food. The sort-of-person stared back with liquid dark eyes, half-sitting, leaning against the walls in the corner as though it needed the support with legs drawn up in front of it. It was weak. The pale form was mottled all over with some dark color Harry couldn't distinguish in the dim light, and had strange hollows that didn't fit on a human body that couldn't all be the effect of shadows, as if something had taken chunks out or caved in the bones underneath and just left it that way. It had to hurt, but he saw no sign of pain on its face as they looked at each other.

"Okay," Harry whispered. "Not Rover."

A car passed by on the street outside, the beams of its headlights cutting through the hedge and cracked door of the shed. The creature withdrew underneath the tarp, subsiding once more into a featureless shadow lined with dust. Harry waited until the bass of the car's stereo faded and crept away back to the house.

He limped into the shed the next evening, and sat down heavily against the door frame so his weight wouldn't push the door shut. "Hey," he mumbled, letting his eyelids droop as he carefully stretched his legs out in the creature's direction since that was the clearest space. "Sorry, I didn't get anything tonight."

The tarp rustled. Cool fingers skimmed his bare foot; Harry grimaced, then leaned his head back and let his eyes close fully. "Dudley decided it'd be funny to slam a door on it."

A second set of fingers joined the first tracing the faint discolored patch on his skin that indicated the development of a bruise. A moment later his foot stopped wanting to twitch under a familiar rasp, rasp and Harry was vaguely surprised by the following sting. Well, maybe bruises had to do with blood; when he skinned his knees they would often bruise as well as bleed.

When the creature finished Harry was curious enough to draw his foot up to examine. He blinked slowly when he saw no trace of discoloration left, only four tiny spots like from a cat's claws, almost as if there wasn't any bruise. Tentatively, he flexed it. "It doesn't hurt anymore!"

Maybe there wouldn't be any bruise now.

The creature made a short purring sound, both hands and a hint of its face visible under the edge of the tarp, so impulsively Harry moved to pull his shirt down one shoulder. "You wanna do another?"

He wound up half lying down much as the creature had while it bent over him, exploratory fingers a prelude to stroke and suck. Harry relaxed, getting sleepier and sleepier under the unfamiliar attention while it fed. It almost felt like being cared for.

When he started to heave himself back up once it was done, a groan escaped him at the effort necessary. He hurt less, but his head spun, and his body felt so heavy... Harry slumped in place, panting shallowly, and wished he could just lay down and sleep where he was for the night. Then he blinked, trying to make his eyes focus, and stared uncertainly at the creature crouched in front of him with one arm extended.

"I don't understand," he whispered.

The creature pulled its arm back, then in one swift motion pierced its wrist with one talon-nail and extended it again. Dark blood welled up just under Harry's nose.

Harry opened his mouth, hesitating; the creature moved its arm up to his lips and then there was blood in Harry's mouth so he swallowed, trying to figure out how to lap at the wound so it would stop bleeding like the creature did for him while his brain teetered on being disgusted or not.

After a moment Harry decided the taste wasn't really all that bad, like when he bit his own lip, even though his instincts couldn't quite adjust to blood in his mouth not meaning he was hurt, especially so much blood. After another moment the creature pulled its arm away. When Harry straightened it didn't take nearly as much effort as before.

The creature returned to the corner under the half-drawn tarp, and Harry leaned back against the doorway and rested since his aunt hadn't called him in to go to bed yet. Blood must be like food somehow after all, he decided. Or maybe he just felt better because he'd gotten back some blood after giving some away? But then how could the creature get better... maybe, by giving him a little, he'd be strong enough to give more than that back... so maybe it made sense. They were helping each other.

But his small pleasure faded as he watched how slowly the creature moved as it settled. Even he'd never had to be that careful when he was hurt. He wasn't helping it as much as it had helped him.

"I heard there was a gang wandering around a few nights ago," he whispered, while the tarp rustled forward until the only facial feature he could make out was a faint gleam of an eye looking back. "Everybody's been complaining about hoodlums since those new people moved in on Wisteria Walk. Uncle Vernon told the police they're selling weeds, but the police said they can't do anything. Aunt Petunia hardly lets Dudley outside anymore."

He paused. After a moment he was answered by a soft hiss.

"Maybe you could suck out Dudley," Harry muttered, then sighed. "I better go. I'm sorry—I'll figure something out, okay?"

All the next day Harry worked on how he could find more blood for the creature. He couldn't search while the sun was up or his aunt would notice him shirking, but he didn't want to sneak out for so long at night and risk her discovering he could jimmy open the lock on his door unless it was an emergency. By the time dusk had fallen he'd figured out what he was going to do, and lingered on purpose in the yard after dinner until his aunt noticed and marched up to the screen door.

"Time for bed, boy, get inside," she said sharply.

Harry combed his fingers through his hair and concentrated very hard on sounding convincing. "I found a stink bug in the roses earlier, Aunt, I think one landed on me."

His aunt shuddered clearly in the kitchen light behind her. "Make absolutely sure you're clean before you take a step through this door! And don't disturb the rest of us. I'll get pesticide in the morning."

"Yes, Aunt." Harry ducked his head meekly and kept combing his hair, to hide the slightly giddy grin he couldn't suppress. A short time later the last light in the house except his aunt and uncle's bedroom one snapped off, and he straightened, took a deep breath, and padded out of the yard to the street.

Roadkill turned out to be far rarer than he'd hoped. By the time most of the neighborhood was dark except for streetlamps he still hadn't found anything, and his aching feet finally made him trudge back toward Privet Drive even though he was reluctant to give up without success. Maybe there'd be a dead bird or squirrel a cat had gotten in the trees around the playground at the end of the street. Maybe he could convince his aunt to let him make a nightly routine of searching for stink bugs... but then he should have done just that and gone straight in earlier so she might not suspect.

A long shadow crossed his as Harry reached another lamp and he looked up, startled, to see an adult falling into step a pace away in the street beside him.

"It's awfully late for someone your age to be out; you live nearby, kid?"

The man sounded friendly, but Harry wasn't sure whether he believed that. He hunched his shoulders a little rather than replying.

"You aren't alone, are you? Parents ought to be more careful these days. Were you locked out? Or are you running away from home?"

Increasingly uncomfortable, Harry finally mumbled, "Going home," and drifted closer to the grassy edge of the sidewalk as he walked. The man drifted closer to the curb. Harry wished he'd noticed him in time to have gone another way and kept the man from noticing him.

"Why don't we go together, then. Is your house very close? Might serve your parents right to worry a little for losing you like this. You want to get a fizzy drink or something to eat before you head back?"

The man smelled strange and kept smiling at him. Harry glanced at the nearest house and recognized that he was only a few houses down and a street away from Four Privet—he could cut through and be almost right back in his own yard.

"Here's home," he muttered, hoping that would make the man go away, and turned around to head for the gap in between the two nearest houses.

"Now just a minute," the man said, still sounding friendly, but years of living with his cousin made Harry duck instinctively just in time to dodge the rustle of an arm reaching to grab him and he bolted, tired feet suddenly forgotten in a wash of fear as he heard the man chase him. Some stranger was chasing him! And he had no chance of outrunning hide get home quiet _help_...

The man had trouble wriggling through the small shadowed space Harry was already familiar with but he still heard the man pounding behind him as he raced into his yard, barely catching himself from slamming into the shed door as he fumbled to open the latch. He fell inside just as he saw the man enter the yard and kicked the door shut anyway, then huddled in the darkness, heart beating so fast he could hear his own harsh pants painfully clearly. He wasn't hidden now he was trapped—

The door jerked open. Harry cowered to the floor and kicked blindly in the tall figure's direction as it started to bend over him—and then in a blur it was gone. For a second Harry froze, unable to process what had happened; then he struggled to sit up. In the grass just outside the shed the man jerked and twitched, with a smaller darker form curled atop him slurping faintly and a heavy hanging smell of blood.

For a few endless seconds Harry watched to be sure the man didn't get up and come at him again, and then he kept staring, hypnotized, because he couldn't look away even though he didn't want to see. His mind seemed to have gone numb. At some point he pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, still watching, until the man stopped moving at all and the creature finally sat up and moved off it, picking its teeth clean with the nails and fingertips of one hand. He looked at the creature then rather than at the body. It looked much healthier than before, maybe even perfectly healthy: a normal human shape and coloring, with easy movements.

Harry took a deep shuddering breath and couldn't quite convince his muscles to unlock enough to let him get up or move. "I don't know if I can do that again if you need more."

The creature glanced back at him, its face looking strangely featureless in the moonlight, then finished with its teeth and licked its fingers clean too, thorough and precise, like a cat washing its paw. Harry watched and felt better by the time it put its hand down, rose, and almost flowed to the shed door, crouching again beside him. It pierced its wrist again and offered it to him.

Harry swallowed several times, hardly noticing the taste, then took another deep breath, and this time his legs worked. He got to his feet, not nearly as gracefully. "Okay, so... what now?"

He tried to think about it—to imagine his aunt and uncle's reaction when they woke up in the morning and found a... body in their yard. He gulped. It was hard to try to keep thinking about what he could possibly do to somehow make this a little bit better for him, much worse than the unknown of what the stranger wanted by chasing him.

After a few minutes only one idea remained in his head and therefore became the plan by necessity. Hands shaking only a little, Harry edged over to the dead man, trying very hard not to see the pale shrunken paper of his skin or the messy rip in his neck, and groped through his pockets until he found a wallet. A quick glance confirmed there was money inside. He stuffed it into one pocket of his oversized pants as he backed up and turned away.

"Come on," he murmured to the creature, staring directly at a streetlight for a second until his eyes burned. "Let's... let's go."

He felt far safer than he would have otherwise entering the street again now that he had someone with him who had so easily taken care of a grown man. He also felt better the farther they got from his aunt and uncle and the body they hadn't found yet. If they could get far enough away to never be found again, then they'd be okay.

Even after the adrenaline that must have helped wore off, only a dull ache began to slow his steps instead of real soreness. Harry pressed on without thought. The creature paced him with no sign of discomfort, occasionally drifting off in one direction or another but never so far that Harry lost the sense of its presence.

He was at a street corner almost to the end of the neighborhood when another stranger appeared close by on the cross street. Harry stiffened, this time without planning to run, while the creature slid to his side with a low hiss.

"So this is where you'd got off to," the man said. "I almost decided you must have been killed. Well? What do you call him?"

Harry looked from one to the other uncertainly. It didn't sound like the man was talking to him, but he wasn't sure who was supposed to answer. The creature hissed again. Harry glanced at the man to find him looking right back.

"What are you doing out at night walking willingly with a vampire?"

Harry shrugged a little. The man nodded, as though that was an answer that made perfect sense.

"Travel is always either to or from. Which has brought you out now?"

Harry glanced at the vampire again. Despite small signs of irritation, it seemed to be mostly ignoring the man, which suggested he wasn't a threat. Especially if the two knew each other.

He definitely didn't want to tell some stranger they were going away from the Dursleys and risk being dragged right back...

"To London," he murmured, raising his chin a little.

The man nodded again. "A city everyone finds reason to visit at some point. Well!" He snapped his fingers, startling the vampire, then waved his hand at it. "Taller, now; one of you will need to pass as an adult on the trains. Lazy creature."

The vampire grumbled, but straightened, and when Harry glanced up at it it had the shape of a grown man, but still felt like his friend. He glanced back to the stranger who seemed, strangely, to be helping them.

"You'll have your fare already, of course," the man commented, "judging by the bulge in your pocket."

Harry fumbled the wallet out, almost surprised to be reminded of it, and concentrated on determining how much money was in it. It was easier to not think about where the wallet had just been now that there was another stranger more important to pay attention to.

He transferred all the cash back to his pocket, then hesitated over what to do with the wallet—he didn't want it anywhere near him. Would it be all right to just toss it away?

"If you've done with it?" the man said, and when Harry glanced at him extended his hand. After another glance to the vampire, Harry gave the man the wallet. He examined it in the streetlight impartially. "Good leather. Not something you want to leave lying around for someone else to find. They'd likely give it to the police. I assume the owner won't be showing up to reclaim it."

Harry started to tense, but the man looked at the vampire, with an expression that seemed almost tolerantly amused. "You are going to be one for causing trouble, aren't you?"

"Jonny," Harry offered, almost surprising himself with the sound of his own voice.

The man nodded. "And—? Have you decided what you'll be called?"

Harry blinked. The man folded his hands behind his back as he started strolling along. Harry followed without really noticing, and the man matched Harry's pace.

"When people travel to, they usually leave behind a from. Some more vigorously than others. To leave something like this—" he gestured with the wallet, "—it's easiest to leave the who that was involved as well as the where. So—what would you like to be called?"

Harry walked slower, absorbing and considering the man's suggestion. He didn't think he minded the idea of not being Harry anymore—Harry who was Boy to his aunt and uncle, Freak to his cousin, and Nobody in school—especially since Harry would be looked for as soon as the neighborhood found the dead man, but he'd never thought of other names for himself. The only ones he could think of belonged to neighbors or classmates. Finally he took a deep breath and asked, "What—what do you think?"

The man looked thoughtful. "Clever. Not something thought of yourself, likely related to your old life."

Harry blinked. He hadn't thought like that, really, but the man sounded approving, so he said nothing.

"Will."

Harry considered. After a moment he nodded slowly.

"Now, here's another bit of cleverness Will works well with, as it's usually short for William. Make yours Willem, W-i-l-l-e-m, and spell it for those people and places you care to be known, and where you aren't—let them think you're William, and their records will be of a person that does not exist."

Harry blinked again, not sure he understood, but nodded anyway. The man nodded more briskly. "That settles itinerary and identity, and you'll find it easy enough in London to continue as you've begun—should be able to do quite well for yourselves. Most ordinary residents may not know of vampires, but the police in such large cities usually follow an unspoken rule of not looking very hard into the disappearances of the kind of people who won't be missed."

The man looked at him piercingly, and Harry nodded again to show he understood. It didn't bother him too much what had happened to the stranger who chased him, but he wouldn't want it to happen to any of the neighbors on Privet Drive. The man nodded back again, looking satisfied.

"And in such a large city there are enough of such people to keep yourself and partner supplied with blood and money. So. Here is your plan; will it do?"

Harry considered carefully. It all sounded sort of murky, but it was basically what he'd been thinking himself before they'd met the stranger, except more detailed. And it sounded better than living with the Dursleys even if there wasn't a body in their yard. After a moment he asked, looking up at his and the vampire's new benefactor, "Do you know where we can stay?"

.

Harry lifted a baseball cap out of the bin and tried it on, turning it backwards when it fell into his face, and grinned a little at his reflection. Suddenly he had almost no hair and an actual forehead, with his scar visible on one side until he straightened the cap. He didn't need any kind of hat, but he still relished having the power to buy what he wanted besides just food. After a moment of playing with a cowboy-style hat he dropped it back in the bin and retrieved the cap, then took a deep breath and headed to the till near the front door.

"Can I get these please?" he asked the lady behind the counter, holding up the cap and a pair of thick socks with no holes or dirty spots on them—a lucky find.

The lady peered down at him and picked up his things, pressing buttons on the till, so Harry relaxed a little. "Your mum isn't with you, dear?" she asked.

"She's finishing up next door. I've got to meet her in five minutes," Harry explained quickly. "She gave me some money though—is this enough?"

He offered a few one-pound coins, and the lady smiled and hummed a little in approval as she took them. He'd learned grownups stopped being concerned about him being alone if he mentioned specific times, even if he had no way to tell when five minutes had passed.

"There you are, dear, now run and catch up with your mum." The lady handed him a bag and his change. Harry took out his new cap and put it on, smiled shyly at her, and trotted out of the secondhand shop toward the "next door" which he passed right by. The grocery was his next stop, an almost daily one since he couldn't carry much. The socks went into one of his pockets and the now-empty bag into a trash can before he entered, and when he got out dusk had fallen enough that he knew Jonny would be awake.

Once in the attic of an empty flat they were currently staying in (it was, apparently, very easy for vampires to pick locks with their talon-nails) Harry transferred his purchases to the backpack that was his closet and cupboard. He and Jonny never stayed in one place long and usually moved on a whim. The vampire appeared from a corner under the eaves as Harry was changing into older clothes like what he used to get from his cousin, except for his new socks and cap, and then they set out into the city.

For all that they did find enough bad people interested in a little boy alone, there were also a lot who seemed genuinely concerned that Harry had to discourage from helping him find his mother or calling his parents. He wasn't sure if he'd just become a better liar through practice or if sharing his friend's blood somehow made him more convincing as well as stronger, but either way he'd yet to get into any real trouble that Jonny couldn't help get him out of. The only difficulty in the vampire playing adult figure for him was its lack of speech.

Harry ate just before they left, and was getting hungry again by the time they found a good prospect.

"Come here, child," an oily voice crooned behind him.

Harry only turned his head a little to try to spot the person, and then he was turning around and stumbling directly to the man, dragged by some kind of force that didn't make sense because nobody was touching him. Harry struggled to find a way out of the invisible influence while a part of his mind yelled for Jonny.

Harry came to a stop in front of the man, vaguely wondering why he was holding a stick, and the man suddenly gasped and straightened while staring at him. "_Harry Potter_."

If Harry had been able to move, he would have started, and run. He'd gotten so used to thinking of himself as Will that hearing his old name was a shock—and how did this stranger know?

Sweaty fingers knocked off his cap and thumbed roughly over his scar. Greed suffused the face breathing too close to his own. Harry forgot his flash of fear in an urge to duck and kick instead. Then Jonny fell on the man with an efficient bite that cut off his ability to scream before he'd gotten the sound started and Harry wrenched himself, determinedly, until he broke free.

Jonny had settled onto his meal, slurping softly with an occasional gurgle of escaping blood from the torn throat. Harry crouched beside him and gingerly pulled the stick out of the man's hand, wondering if it could somehow explain what had just happened to him.

It was very smooth for a stick; maybe polished, even. Small impressions in the wood around the bottom made him wonder if maybe that part was supposed to be a handle. When he tried touching the opposite, narrower tip, his finger jerked as if from static electricity even though he saw no spark in the darkness.

Harry rose with the stick in hand and looked around. A dented old tin can had fallen beside a dumpster in the alley just behind them. Harry pointed the stick at it like the man had done to him and concentrated, hard, on _Come here_.

The can didn't move. Harry tried harder, tried picturing it rolling, picturing an invisible string running from the tip of the stick to the can and reeling it in. He tried ordering it mentally, coaxing it, and wanting it as much as he'd ever wished for one of the toys his cousin got that he wasn't allowed to touch. _MovemovemovemoveMOVE!_

The can wobbled. Harry almost dropped the stick, then quickly tightened his grip and watched the can wobble again in disbelief. He looked at Jonny. "Did you see that?"

The vampire ignored him. Harry fingered the stick and waited for his friend to finish feeding. He almost forgot to retrieve the man's wallet before they left, but couldn't find a wallet anyway—only a little bag in an inner pocket that was full of unfamiliar heavy coins.

Harry exchanged a glance with Jonny, a little unnerved again though he didn't want to admit it. Would any shopkeepers take such money? And the mystery of the stick was solved—sort of—but how had the man known what his old name was?

He couldn't figure it out himself, and it bothered him too much to just forget about it. There was only one person he could think of to ask, even though he usually just left the money-emptied wallets without seeing anyone.

Jonny's friend just shrugged when he told him what the person had called him. "Perhaps you bear a resemblance. Did you keep the stick?"

Harry pulled it out from his sleeve and held it up. He probably ought to tie it to his arm somehow if he decided he didn't want to lose it.

"Ahhh, yes," the man said with a smile. "If you have the ability to use them, wands could be very useful to you."

"It didn't do much," Harry confessed hesitantly, fingering his new stick—wand—again. "Not as much as it did on me."

"Practice," the man advised. "The person who used it before likely trained in it and had it specifically fitted to him. You do not have such advantages, but this wand has already been ingrained for years to the previous owner's use. Thus it should be easier for you to make it do the same things."

Harry bit his lip. "What if he only used it for a couple things?"

The man shrugged again. "Collect more of them—different persons will have used theirs differently. You may find some wands easier for you to use than others."

Harry nodded slowly, looking at the wand. He liked the idea of being able to use it, or another like it, to do impossible things. But... "How do I find more people who have them?"

"True. They are far fewer than the ordinary masses." The man tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Patience, persistence, good fortune. Where you see one there may, perhaps, eventually be another. Your friend might not find it impossible to track them to usual haunts. Perhaps you may even be able to draw them out with the possibility of being this Harry Potter."

Harry wanted to squirm, but held himself still while he considered the option. He didn't like the idea of wand-carrying people somehow knowing his name, but... he _wasn't_ really Harry anymore. Harry was who had lived with the Dursleys and always gotten picked on, not who fed himself with Jonny and had a friend who not only stuck with him but even protected him. He liked being Will much better than he ever had being Harry. But maybe he could pretend to be Harry, sort of, let any wand-carriers think he was, and then let Jonny take care of them like he did everybody else.

"What about this?" He held out one of the shiny silver ones of the strange coins. The man plucked it from his fingers and raised it close to his face to scrutinize.

"Not valuable to you, except possibly in trade to a coin dealer or jeweler, who would certainly ask questions. The metal could be genuine." He passed it back to Harry, who put it away carefully in a pocket. "You may eventually discover a shop that caters to such currency. If you like I'll keep it somewhere safe for you."

Harry considered, then nodded, and handed over the rest of the coins from the pouch. They'd get too heavy to carry around himself if he and Jonny found anyone with more of them.

"Thanks," he murmured, since he was pretty sure it was polite.

The man waved it off as the strange money disappeared into his coat. "The sun will come up in a few hours. You'll want to be well sheltered before then."

Harry nodded and trotted away, Jonny falling in on the roof above him. It had been a long night; he was as ready as his friend to turn in for the day.

.


	2. Middle

.

When Harry came back to himself he had a moment of confusion. A grownup with a stick was kneeling in front of him, but it wasn't the one who must have blanked him out. That man was gone, replaced by two more wand-carriers waving and talking to each other near the place his attacker had been standing. A part of his mind instantly focused on Jonny.

"...If you can understand me. It's all right, kid, the bad man is gone," the man in front of him was saying soothingly. Harry fought an irrational urge to protest that Jonny hadn't gotten to eat yet.

"...Is he?" one of the other grownups asked—not loudly but still clear over the short distance.

"Still disoriented," the one in front of him said.

"Not so much." The second man strode over and knelt in front of Harry too. "Back to yourself again, lad? We're not going to hurt you. Neither is anyone else now."

Harry edged back a step. Their promises didn't sound very different from what his vampire's victims said. He was sure Jonny was nearby, which helped him stay calm, but Jonny couldn't beat a group. Jonny really didn't like groups.

"All right, Jenkins, give him some room." The first man rose and backed away. The second kept kneeling, looking at Harry, then raised his wand and carefully tucked it away up his sleeve. "I'm not going to come any closer. I promise, lad, we may have the same tools as that scab but none of us are going to use one on you."

Harry wanted to just get away from them, make them forget they'd ever seen him and go hunt somewhere else with Jonny, but he didn't know how to make that happen. So he said, "I'm not scared of wands."

The man grinned a little. "Very sensible of you. Can you tell me what happened to the man who attacked you? What do you remember?"

Harry tensed. Had Jonny gotten to the man first, before these people came along and forced him to leave the body?

"I... I—panicked," he invented. "I wanted him to—not hurt me. Not be able to hurt me. And... I felt... I just _wanted_, and..."

He was about to pull out his own wand, reluctant though he was to risk losing it to them, when the man in front of him said, "It's all right, lad, that's enough. He can't hurt you anymore. You have someone we can call to get you?"

Immediately, Harry shook his head.

"Can you tell me anything the man said? What he wanted?"

Harry hesitated. These people hadn't instantly whispered it—he wasn't even sure if they were already assuming it—but there was no telling if they would change.

He took a deep breath, then murmured, "Harry Potter."

The man's eyebrows raised a little. "Thought you were?"

Harry nodded.

"Are you?"

More quickly, Harry shook his head.

"Tell me what your name is?"

Harry pressed his lips together.

The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the other two, who'd gone back to waving their wands and muttering. "That's Jenkins and Lysah. I'm Tavish. You can call me Tav."

Harry blinked at him, slowly, but still couldn't see any way out of the situation. "Will."

"Good to meet you, Will. Mind coming back with us to make an official record of what happened?"

Harry stiffened. "I don't want to go."

"You're our only witness; it's standard procedure to take your statement," the man said calmly. "Won't take more than a few hours."

Harry glared at him a little, suspicion not much eased. The man didn't look affected.

"The longer we stay here the longer it'll take before we're done. Anyone you want to come with you, someone you're out with?"

Jonny, but Jonny would just follow anyway without these people knowing he was there. Harry shook his head.

"All right. Ready now?"

Harry let the man put a hand on his shoulder because he knew better than to try to fight a grownup. The next instant his body had been crushed into a tiny ball hurtling through something too tight to fit in total darkness, and the instant after that he was himself again standing in a small dim-lit bare room. He staggered, barely aware of the man's steadying grip, and fought the urge to heave.

A brief span after that passed of him being moved to another room somewhere else in the building. Harry didn't even try to keep track of where he was or what happened around him, focused wholly and instantly on reuniting with Jonny. He hadn't imagined these people could travel like that—how far away were they now? Where was he? He couldn't do anything about getting out of here closer to Jonny if these grownups didn't let him, but he knew his friend was coming as fast as possible to him.

The man who'd brought him gave him a cup of hot cocoa and stuck around until an older woman arrived, then left quietly while she sat down at a desk and waved Harry to sit opposite. "I'm Amelia Bones, head of the auror division," she told him. "Do you know what an auror is?"

Harry shook his head.

"You know police-men? That's what we are, for magic users."

Since she seemed to expect a response, Harry nodded cautiously. He knew policemen were supposed to be good guys, who you could ask for help if you got lost, but they weren't supposed to know about Jonny and he wasn't sure if that was the same for auror-policemen. And even though he wasn't lost he wasn't sure if they might try to put him back with the Dursleys.

"So, Will. Can you tell me about yourself? Do you have a family?"

Harry instantly tensed, and hesitated. _No,_ he wanted to say, and he didn't anymore, but, technically... He gave one tiny shake of his head, then nodded once quickly and clenched the cup in his hands. They couldn't make him go back if he didn't tell any names. _Jonnyjonnyjonny_ how much night left 'til sunrise...

Amelia Bones' voice was very soft, though he didn't look up at her. "Have you ever seen them do magic?"

Startled, Harry shot a glance up and shook his head fiercely. The _Dursleys_, do impossible things by waving a stick around?

"Have they ever seen you do magic?"

Harry started to shake his head again, then paused. He fingered the wand tied under his sleeve and thought. "Once... a teacher wanted to make me take a special test, and... I just wanted to her to leave me alone..." he admitted, barely audible but not too slow. "And then her hair turned blue."

He glanced up again. Amelia Bones nodded at him. "That's called accidental magic. It happens when children are stressed, it's perfectly natural."

Harry relaxed a little. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon sure hadn't seen it as natural, or Dudley, or the teacher or any of the other kids in class... he'd _wished_ to be Nobody again for a while.

"And how did your family react?"

Harry stared down at his cup. "Got locked in my room for a week." Which had been not too bad, since it meant no chores, except an entire week of absolutely nothing to do or see and not being able to move around much had gotten really hard by the end. "Aunt Pe—" _No names_, so they couldn't send him back— "My aunt and uncle had to call the school and pay lots of money so they'd let me back, so they took it out of my lunch money—cause it was my fault—" That hadn't been too bad either, after he got used to that much less food every day, but it'd been a long time before he remembered what it was like not to feel hungry all the time. "And Dudley and his gang decided maybe they could make something like that happen again if they could catch me." He couldn't have eaten lunch after that anyway, when he had to hide from his cousin through every break.

"What about your parents?"

Harry shrugged, though his shoulders didn't move much since he was still holding the cup. "Car crash. Long time ago."

"Will."

Harry looked up, warily, but he didn't think from her expression that she was about to start lecturing him on everything he was wrong like his aunt and uncle and officials at school.

"You're not the first muggleborn to have a bad home life because of your magic. Unfortunately, you probably won't be the last."

Harry blinked at her slowly, not sure why she was telling him that or how he was supposed to feel about it.

"And we will _not_—ever—force you back there just because they're your family."

Harry blinked at her again, this time in shock. Really?

"Your well-being is more important than your blood. We never want any child trapped somewhere they aren't appreciated. But it's very hard to track muggleborn children until they're older, in a magic school. I'm sorry we never found you."

Harry kept staring at her, because he didn't know what else to do or how to react. He wasn't sure he could talk if he tried at the moment. Someone—some stranger _cared_, that much, that he hadn't liked his home, just... because? Because he could wave a stick and do impossible things, like them?

After a moment he nodded once, vaguely, just because his head was spinning and he still didn't know what to do. He took a sip of his drink, then sipped it again, slower, savoring the sweet taste with surprise. It was hot, almost too hot, but... cocoa was good.

"Do you still live with them?"

Harry shook his head, a little shyly, but after her declaration found the courage to admit, "I ran away."

"How do you take care of yourself?"

Harry scrunched up his nose in confusion at the question.

"Find enough to eat, a place to sleep."

Harry bit his lip. _No Jonny_, because these people might have decided they liked him but he wasn't going to risk revealing his friend. They might not like vampires.

He fingered his wand again. Blue hair. Cans rattling out of alleys. "I... wander. And when people notice me that... that I don't like, that... then, I get—" stressed, was the word she'd used? "—I start getting stressed, and want them not to be able to hurt me, and..." He bit his lip again, trying to decide on a realistic defense that wasn't Jonny. "And they can't. And..."

He fidgeted, because these were magic policemen and stealing was wrong, but she'd already said they liked him and not his family, and most of the people he and Jonny'd found definitely weren't magic.

"...Then I take the money out of their wallets and use it for food and sometimes clothes and stuff," he confessed, and stole a glance up to try to judge her reaction. She didn't look like she was frowning. That was good.

"That's a well thought out plan. How did you come up with it?"

Harry hesitated again. Was it safe to admit? Would it get Jonny's friend in trouble? "I... met somebody who helped me figure it out."

"Can you tell me about this person?"

Harry glanced up at her suspiciously. What would sound convincing? "He keeps the wallets, without the money, and... helps me find places to stay."

Not always, he and Jonny had gotten good at figuring out whether apartments were empty and if the neighbors were nosy, but they did sometimes get tips and directions about particular places, so it was true.

Amelia Bones nodded slowly. "Does he ever stay with you?"

"No." _Course not_, Harry almost added, so startled by the idea. "He's... busy. I guess. With his own stuff. I just leave the wallets and sometimes talk if he's there, and he tells me about things or gives me stuff sometimes. 'Cause... to trade."

Though Harry couldn't imagine why wallets without any money were worth anything, but he didn't think the stuff he got was expensive, so he figured it was probably okay. They weren't really in trade, just... well, probably because he was Jonny's friend too. Harry and Jonny looked out for each other, and the older man kept an eye on them because... he wanted to, Harry guessed. Maybe because he liked vampires. Or because wallets were valuable for something; maybe he sold them to new people after emptying the cards and pictures and stuff.

"What kind of stuff does he give you?"

His backpack, that had been first thing, the first time they met after getting to the city. But after that...

Harry lifted his glasses off the bridge of his nose, enough to show them off, but not letting them go. "I see things fuzzy without them," he confessed. He'd never even noticed until suddenly the world around him was clear. "These are the right kind to let me see like everybody else does."

He couldn't help but still wonder sometimes if he might have been not so bad at school if he'd had glasses before, might have been able to read what the teachers wrote on the blackboards instead of guessing. And maybe then the teachers might have liked him a little better...

"That's very nice of him."

Harry nodded, resettling the glasses on his nose and squinting to make sure they were on straight.

"And then...? When you ran into a wizard for the first time?"

Harry worked it out as he went, starting to get a feel for the mostly-truth-without-Jonny. "He had this stick, and I was walking over to him even though I was trying not to, and... I panicked." Sort of not really. "And..." He still couldn't figure out exactly how he could knock out a grownup man with magic instead of Jonny. "After he stopped, I picked up his wand, and... I couldn't make it do much." He glanced up at her to see how she reacted to that, since she'd said they liked him because he was magic. He probably wasn't very, at least compared to them.

"You haven't had any training yet. Is that the only wizard you've run into?"

Harry shook his head.

"Can you remember how many?"

Harry mentally counted the wands in his backpack, plus the one under his sleeve, plus an extra one he hadn't gotten from the wizard tonight. "Five."

"And you've gotten away from them safely each time."

Harry nodded, a little cautiously.

"Do you know why they wanted you?"

"Because... they think I'm Harry Potter," he whispered, clutching his mug again. Maybe this woman knew who that was. Maybe she could tell him why these magic people all seemed to know his old name. He glanced up. "Who is he?" Why did he seem so important?

Amelia Bones sighed a little and sat back in her big chair. Harry sucked down more of his cocoa, holding it in his mouth and swirling it around his teeth before letting it trickle down his throat in tiny swallows. It was still warm, still sweet.

"Harry Potter is... a myth, to most. A baby who defeated a very dark wizard that no one else could best. Saved our world, and then vanished."

"What... what happened to him?" Harry managed to squeak. No way could _he_, who was really Will now, be some kind of miracle savior like that. He couldn't.

"One of our sages hid him away, with muggles, he said. No doubt he'll bring Potter out for schooling when he turns eleven, if that's true. And many people believe him. But I won't be surprised if the boy doesn't show up. No one knows for certain what happened on that night—only that the Dark Lord hasn't appeared since, and neither has the baby. The Boy Who Lived Long Enough."

Harry held his cup at his lips but couldn't find the muscle control to tilt it and swallow. He felt spellbound, mesmerized, and... hugely intimidated and relieved. He was _not_ Harry Potter. He didn't want to be and wasn't anymore and wouldn't ever be again, and he wasn't a hero or a baby anyway and that was that.

"I'm _not_ Harry Potter," he blurted just to be sure she understood that too.

She smiled with a thoughtful look at him. "No, though you do bear a striking resemblance to James Potter when he was young. Due in part to those glasses. Some wizards—many of them—want very much to discover Harry somewhere, alive and well. You're not the only boy to have been mistaken for him."

Harry nodded, further relieved.

"Now, Will—can you tell me about the vampire?"

Harry froze.

"Tonight makes the fifth wizard we've found with bite marks, drained of blood," Amelia Bones went on, just as calmly as she'd asked everything else. "Vampires normally have very little to do with wizards. How did you meet one?"

Harry clutched his cup while his mind spun, trying to figure out what would sound convincing without risking Jonny. If he was so important just because he could do magic then five grownup wizards who could really do magic would be a lot more important, even if they were bad people probably—

"I am," he blurted. _Jonny runawayhidecomegetmehelp_—

"Vampires don't like heat, Will."

Harry followed her gaze, startled, to the cup in his hands he'd just gulped from and couldn't help flinching a little at the realization. Renewed anxiety coiled in a miserable ball in his stomach and throbbed there.

"I... he..." They already knew about Jonny, except that Jonny was Jonny; Jonny might could get inside a building full of wizards safely but he couldn't get Harry out and Harry couldn't get out unless the wizards let him...

"They were bad people," he insisted, gripping the mug to keep his hands steady but not drinking from it again. The edge of the chair had suddenly become very hard pressed into the backs of Harry's legs. He took several deep breaths, through his nose, trying to be calm and believable. "Even if they were magic. They wanted to hurt a kid, and—so Jonny ate them. We're careful. Jonny only eats the people who'd hurt me."

"You're its thrall," Amelia Bones murmured.

He didn't have any idea what the word or her expression meant, so he pushed on, trying not to feel desperate, "And when we don't find anybody like that he only has some from me, cause I let him, and whenever he takes too much he lets me take some back—"

She looked so startled that Harry stopped and watched. "You enthralled a vampire?"

"I... don't know?"

"You're—you've drunk vampire blood, willingly given?"

Warily, Harry nodded.

"More than once?"

He nodded again.

Amelia Bones blew out her breath and leaned forward in her chair, looking at him intently. "You're bonded with a vampire. That's... highly unusual for them, Will."

"We're friends," Harry said, very softly, almost afraid of what she might say to that. Harry and Jonny didn't just help each other out and look after each other, they _were_ friends—Harry's first ever friend.

Amelia Bones looked at him even more intently, then said, while he felt a stab of fear, "I should put everything possible into breaking that bond, to give you a chance at a normal life. I _should_."

Harry knew that trying to run would be absolutely useless, especially when he was inside, but it didn't stop him having to fight the instinct to try anyway. _JonnyjonnyjonnyjonnyJONNY_—

"But." Harry calmed, just a little, staring at her raised hand. "From what I see, at this point it might well do more harm than good. Most people would insist we try anyway—"

Harry was going to run away and hide and escape somehow and never come near wizards again they'd never find him or Jonny they didn't need these people—

"But it isn't most people's business. I give you my word, Will, I will do nothing to try to separate you from your friend."

Harry stared at her, not quite sure he believed that.

"In fact, I think we can help each other. It isn't easy, is it, the way you live now?"

Easy? Well, no, there were still hungry times when they couldn't find a bad person for Jonny or the person didn't have much money for Harry, but... it wasn't _bad_. Harry struggled a little on how to explain that.

"Wizards especially aren't safe to approach the way you do, are they?"

Harry leaned back a little in his seat, reluctant. The wizards... yes, they were maybe getting bad. Harry had barely even noticed anyone was near earlier that night and then suddenly the auror people were in front of him, which was still better than the last one where he'd _wanted_ to hurry right over to the man and stick his hand in the man's pants for no reason he could think of. But Jonny protected him.

"Maybe," he whispered.

"Do you think your friend might be willing to feed less on each person if he has more people to feed from?"

Harry blinked at her warily. "You mean... not kill anybody?"

She nodded.

"I don't..." Well of course Jonny could not kill people, he never hurt Harry, but—that was different. "Why?"

Amelia Bones leaned forward just a little and folded her hands on the desk in front of her. "You're right that the wizards you've met on the streets already are bad people. Your friend does right to protect you from them. The aurors' job is the same thing, to make sure bad wizards don't hurt anyone else. And you two are very good at that."

"But... you asked if Jonny can not kill them," Harry protested, confused.

Amelia Bones smiled a little. "Aurors try not to kill unless there is no other way to protect themselves or innocent people, Will. We shut away bad people instead, so we can find out from them what they've done and try to fix it, and so our souls aren't stained with death."

Harry didn't know what that meant. "So..."

"So, if you and your friend are willing, you could help us do what we both already do. Bad wizards will come out for Harry Potter, your friend can feed from them, and we can take them away."

Harry considered it, as carefully as he could. Did that make sense, that these aurors would let Jonny keep eating people as long as they got the people afterward? It seemed to make sense the way she said it.

"We don't find many wizards," he ventured.

"But you haven't looked where wizards live," Amelia Bones pointed out. "We can help you find them and make sure you and your friend are safe while he feeds."

_Why_— Harry started to ask, and then remembered: she said they cared because he could do magic too. And apparently they liked Jonny after all. He still squirmed a little in his seat as he thought about that.

"That's not your only option, of course. We could look for a new family for you if you want, a magical one, not like your relatives."

Harry bit the rim of his cup instead of sipping, then relaxed his jaw because biting the cup even lightly hurt. A new family? A family like... where he could be Dudley, instead of Harry? That would be...

But Harry could never be anybody's Dudley, because he wasn't anybody's real relative. And what would Jonny do? He shook his head. "I want to stay like this."

"All right. We can make you a ward of the department, for the few who need to know. As for that other friend—the one who helps you and your vampire find places to stay—can you tell me his name?"

Harry considered again, carefully, but there didn't seem to be any reason not to. It probably wasn't even his real name, the way he'd helped Harry change his, so surely it couldn't hurt. "Mister Munroe."

"Of course, Munroe," Amelia Bones muttered, but when Harry looked at her warily she looked straight back and said, "Well. You could have done much worse than run into him, I'll admit. But he's not likely to have anything further to do with you if you involve yourself with us."

But he has my wizard money, Harry almost protested. He'd need it now, wouldn't he?

But he didn't have much of it, even if he didn't know what any of it was worth yet, and he could get a lot more now... if the auror people let him keep the wallets (or money pouch things) still. Would they?

Well, if they didn't, he and Jonny could still sneak out and feed off enough not-magical people to get Harry enough money for food. Would Mister Munroe be upset if Harry and Jonny started helping these people? He didn't seem to dislike them or anything; he didn't seem to dislike anything that Harry had ever noticed. Harry wasn't sure he could imagine how Mister Munroe could really mind if he and Jonny started focusing on wizard people instead of normal.

"But we're not really changing what we do, and that's what he helps us with," Harry worked out, watching her face closely for any sign of disapproval. "And we don't need much help anyway..."

Then suddenly he understood what she'd meant, and stopped talking. Harry still saw Mister Munroe because he dropped off the wallets from Jonny's meals. Wizards didn't have wallets, not the ones he and Jonny had found so far anyway. Just money in little bags.

"Okay," he murmured after a moment, just to say something. "It's... okay." Whether he saw Mister Munroe again or not. He really didn't think the man would mind.

"All right then. I'll take care of your paperwork—what's your full name?"

"Willem," Harry told her. "With a _e_."

.

The cocoa helped Harry stay warm and alert, but by the time Amelia Bones said they were done he was getting tired and hungry and didn't know what to expect next. He wanted to just go turn in for the day with Jonny like normal, but he didn't want to go back to the attic if that meant showing these magic people where it was when he still didn't know them.

It turned out he didn't have to.

"Now, let's see about getting you settled," Amelia Bones said after, "That's that taken care of," and opened her door and called for Savage. Savage came in, almost as big as Uncle Vernon but with a smile Harry couldn't remember ever seeing directed at him from his relatives before, and traded Harry something warm and crunchy and melty inside for his empty cocoa mug, then led him out of the big building to a much smaller one he said was an auror's pub.

"The watering hole for the degenerates on night shift—" he said cheerfully as he ushered Harry in, which made several of the grownups inside start to talk back. "—And more important, a whole floor of rooms for people whose neighbors get twitchy at upstanding citizens keeping unnatural hours. Shut it, you lot! This here's our new junior, Will, you'll hear all about it from Robards, make him welcome—say Will, when's your birthday, you just missed the party for the rest of us. We'll just throw you ano—"

"Bollocks to that!" someone seated at the bar said. "Lump him in next year; once a year's once too often without booze! Hey, kid."

"Healer's orders. You're the one who got yourself kicked out of St. Mungo's last time you went on a bender," someone else said. "Who's coming with the lad's luggage, Roq, didn't you bring him with anything but the rags on his back?"

"I'm putting him in the back corner, Finn, it clean?" Savage said to the man behind the bar while leading Harry with a hand on his back to the stairs on the back wall.

"Course. Welcome," the man said as Harry and Savage passed by, and then most of the noise and light dimmed behind them.

"Here you go. Your room," Savage said when they'd walked to the end of the hall atop the stairs, pointing to a door. "Need anything? You look tired, just make yourself at home and all the rest will come as it may in the morning. Sweet dreams!"

Harry stared after him down the hall for a moment, then carefully opened the door—his door?—and looked around the room without stepping inside. It was plain and uncluttered, with a bed that had a pillow and blanket and headboard and a dresser with six drawers. The walls and floor were all over wood and the ceiling sloped down to the one window on the far wall.

After a few minutes no one had come up and the noise downstairs stayed muted, so Harry edged inside, closed the door behind him and decided whatever else happened at least he and Jonny could sleep here for the day. He crossed to the window and opened it to let Jonny slide in, then tugged it shut again while the vampire circled the room, nostrils flaring, and hissed at the candle floating over the top of the dresser.

Harry dragged the blanket off the bed to the floor of the closet beside the door. One blanket wasn't enough for a comfortable nest, but it was enough to sleep on now that Jonny was there to watch for intruders. Harry blew out the candle and pulled the closet door shut, Jonny curled into his body warmth, smaller formed like Harry as he always was for rest, and Harry dropped into sound sleep.

.

The days of the next few weeks were much longer than usual, like when Harry and Jonny had first left Privet Drive for London, but Harry wondered far more often if everything was really happening that seemed to be. When he woke up the next afternoon in the strange room and pulled open the closet door, there was another blanket on the bed exactly like the first one he was still kneeling on top of. He waited a few minutes, to see if anyone came in again, then eventually pulled that blanket off the bed to throw over Jonny who stirred and grumbled at the slightest hint of afternoon light.

When he backed out of the closet again, there was a third blanket tidily spread across the bed, exactly like the first two.

Harry stared for several minutes longer, tiptoed to the door and peeked into the hallway to see if anyone was there, and then stared at the blanket for another few minutes. He checked out the window. Eventually he carefully grabbed hold of the new blanket and pulled it off, then dragged it backwards to the closet, watching the bare bed every step. He glanced toward the door and window, turned as quickly as he could to bundle the blanket into the closet, and turned around again—to a fourth blanket, exactly like the other three.

Five blankets and the closet door shut left Jonny grumbling and shifting to form a proper nest around himself, while Harry cautiously returned to the bed with its sixth. He tried turning the blanket down, then flipping it back up. Eventually he climbed on top of the bed, gingerly, and sat and looked around. The room looked the same as yesterday. The blanket didn't move beneath him.

The candle floating over the dresser suddenly started burning. Harry climbed off the bed, waved his hand all around it without finding any strings or supports, and finally blew it out and went to the door. Jonny wasn't up yet, but he was right there if Harry needed him, which gave him the nerve to venture downstairs on his own.

As soon as Harry edged down the last step into the pub, before he'd done more than notice how much quieter it was now and how few people were there, the man behind the bar handed him a bowl of warm porridge and told him to eat. And it wasn't just free food, but a big bowl of it, and tasted like fresh blueberries. When he finished the man asked him if he wanted any more.

"You're growing, lad, you let me know whenever you're hungry and I'll see to something to fill you," the man told him when Harry stammered, not sure if he was supposed to say yes or no. "Stagehand always has something on the ready for whoever comes in—here, if I'm busy, just duck round and pick whatever you like out of the cupboard. Just don't go for any of the bottles over your head; they'll stunt your growth to nothing."

"Does it—cost much?" Harry asked, looking at all the sandwiches and dishes on the shelves of the cupboard, ready to pluck out and eat. He hadn't had to pay at his aunt and uncle's, except in chores, but he had in all the shops in London. This place didn't seem quite like a house or a shop.

"Not out of your pocket, Robards already has your stipend set up and expenses arranged," the man told him. "You're working like everybody else, you get paid like everybody else. You don't need to worry about room or board, or school, and you'll have a bit left over every week for extras."

"School?" Harry repeated. Amelia Bones hadn't said anything about that, had she?

"Course. Just a day school, mind, at least for now. You get up every afternoon, looks like you'll be all right with that, go to classes for a few hours, and come back to go to work and back to bed for the day."

Harry hadn't even thought about school since he'd left Privet Drive. And why did it matter, anyway, when these wand-wavers must learn to wave their wands instead and apparently didn't even need to do that to do things like light candles. He'd never liked school much.

But all the grownups seemed to consider it settled, so Harry decided to try it at least for a day or two. He wasn't used to having so much good food available, and they really seemed to mean it to help himself, so maybe it would still be worth staying. Jonny snuck out back to the attic to fetch Harry's backpack, which he filled with books and paper from the aurors that he didn't have to pay for either, and for the first time he entered a magic school.

Parts of it were like his old school; there was still math and cursive and history and things he'd been learning before, but the pen he used for cursive was a feather and the history was full of dragons and goblins and wizards dueling instead of just kings and peasants and taxes. None of the other students bothered him, and the teachers sometimes said, "Good job, Will," or asked him if he knew an answer the same as they did to everybody else. And Dudley was never there.

He didn't get any lessons on how to wave his wand like the wizards did, nor did any of the other students that he saw, which puzzled him for a while until Savage explained that it would be bad for him to try until he'd grown up more. Savage actually talked more about horses than Harry when he explained it, how if a horse got started running a lot when it was little it would get breathing problems and never be able to run as long as if it'd started running later, but Harry thought he understood the comparison. Grow then train, Savage summarized, to be strong. And once Harry's magic had finished growing he'd get his own wand, properly fitted to him, that would work better for him than anybody else's would.

Harry fingered the wand he still kept tied up his sleeve just in case and nodded, but didn't say anything. It took a while until he finally left all his wands buried at the bottom of his backpack where he couldn't get at them fast, but he never needed them at school, and Jonny was with him all the rest of the time. He was still glad when the aurors never thought to ask for the dead men's wands back though.

.


	3. End

.

"Going to be LATE, going to be LATE, going to be LATE—"

Harry opened his eyes and lifted his head off his pillow blearily, to see a white rabbit in a vest running around the room on its hind legs. He blinked. The rabbit pulled a pocketwatch out of a vest pocket and resumed its chant as it hopped toward the door. Harry decided he must be dreaming and pulled the cover over his head.

A little while later, feeling much more awake, he untangled himself from the bed and shuffled through his normal afternoon routine. Since it was a weekend, he left his backpack behind by his homework desk and headed downstairs for breakfast. Jenkins and Savage were seated together at the bar when he came down.

"—Fantasies are classics, it's only muggleborns that understand it," Jenkins scoffed. "Will can tell you too, hey Will?"

Harry just looked at them both as he climbed onto the stool beside Savage.

Savage patted him on the back. "That's right, lad, best response when this one starts up. How've you been then?"

He ignored Jenkins' "You've only been out four days."

"That partner of yours talking yet?"

Harry looked at the counter in front of him and guessed "Eggs," a second before a plate of eggs and bacon appeared in front of him. He grinned "Thanks, Stagehand," then frowned at Savage. "Jonny can't talk."

"Well not yet, he's just a baby," Savage said, digging into his own meal. "Babies learn fast though, he'll be picking up our swear words before you know it."

Harry frowned slowly around his eggs as he thought about the idea of Jonny as a baby.

On Savage's other side, Jenkins leaned forward to catch Harry's gaze. "Ignore the big lummox, vampire infants aren't anything like human ones. Not that there's much documented on them to support claims either way."

"We don't need documents with our own junior crimefighters right here," Savage returned cheerfully. "Yours is a baby, Will-o, cause if you ever meet a grown one you'll tell the difference right off."

He ignored Jenkins' "_You've_ never met a grown one."

"They don't grow, as such, like we do, seeing as they're shapeshifters, they just get better at it. Your buddy lives long enough, he'll likely not need half so much blood half as often, and pass as anything he wants so well nobody will tell unless he lets them know."

"Don't get into the stories of that vampire that could turn into mist, you'll just confuse the kid with tall tales," Jenkins broke in. "I've told you that's muggle—"

Savage scoffed. "Muggles don't know anything about vampires."

"No, you believe—"

Harry ate his breakfast and watched them argue quietly, wondering if any of what they said mattered enough to ask Jonny about. He wondered if either of them was aware of Jonny hiding somewhere behind the counter, but didn't mention it since Jonny still didn't really like attention. It wasn't like they seemed to be saying anything bad about his friend.

"—And that's why you two are going to be the best bloody team the department's had in centuries, with your buddy willing to help you out with human affairs," Savage enthused. "Better than metamorphmagi, if there's any truth to crossbreeding that's probably where—"

"For cripes' sake, Roq, think about what you fill his head with—you don't have to become an auror, Will, there are lots of—"

"But what else could be better, with shining role models like us?" Savage nudged Harry's arm and winked broadly.

Harry chewed and swallowed. "What's a meh… tha…?"

"Metamorphmagi are, basically, shapeshifting humans," Jenkins explained, leaning around Savage again with his elbows on the counter. "They can change their appearance without any particular spells or even a wand. They can't change their base structure, though—they'll always look human, just like different people when they want to."

"Like… if somebody cut all their hair off, and it was back the next day?"

"Nah, that sounds like wish magic, but good on you lad!" Savage ruffled his hair before Harry had time to duck. "Ha!—explains your handy mysterious-looking scar too, eh? Showed up after you figured out folks expected Harry Potter to have something like that?"

That sounded convenient, so Harry nodded. Savage looked pleased.

"Near impossible for a full-fledged trait like that to show up in a muggleborn, but sounds like you might have an affinity. Maybe your kids could get it someday if you find someone similar—try a Black, I heard they have an offshoot in Hogwarts that turned up a metamorph."

"Oh sure, if he wants to shop for a wife by attribute, this young—"

The door swished open behind them. Harry glanced up and waved at Tavish, glad to see him since the conversation was beginning to sound slightly alarming. Then he straightened on his stool as Tavish headed directly to him.

"'Lo all. Will, can your partner handle this much light for a trip to the Ministry building?"

Harry glanced outside at the lingering sunshine. "With the popping travel?"

None of the others acted like they noticed Jonny's low hiss. Tavish nodded. "If he prefers Apparition. I've got an invisibility cloak on me to turn in."

Harry glanced at Jonny as the vampire appeared behind the bar in front of them, lips drawn back. Jenkins and Savage jumped a little. "Can he see the cloak?"

Tavish pulled it out of a pocket that looked much too small to have held it and handed it to Harry. Harry looked at it curiously as he passed it over the bar to Jonny.

"Oh hell," Jenkins sighed as the vampire disappeared. "That's all we need."

Harry grinned at Jonny's shorter higher-noted hiss. "That's good. Do we have to go now?"

"Go ahead and finish eating."

Harry finished quickly, rolling his eyes a little privately when Savage grabbed a straw and poked it randomly in the air where Jonny wasn't anymore. The emptied plate vanished. Harry repeated "Thanks, Stagehand," as he climbed down from his seat.

"What's going on?" he asked Tavish diffidently once they were outside, Tavish just ahead, Jonny roaming from and to his side testing the cloak.

"Something about the last mission, probably. Robards will tell you."

Harry stilled for a second. Tavish turned around, noticing, and Harry hurried to catch up. "Is Jonny in trouble?"

"What, for ripping that—man's arm half off? You didn't see the rest of that house, Will. It was justified defense, especially in that situation."

"You didn't let me see the rest," Harry murmured, slightly reassured by the adult's reaction.

Tavish put his hand on Harry's head for a second. "We didn't want to have to see it either."

Harry brushed his hair over the scar on his forehead when they got to the Ministry and stuck close behind Tavish, wishing he'd remembered his cap, but no one seemed to pay any attention to them, even on the auror floor, until they entered the night shift supervisor's office.

Tavish closed the door behind them and held out his hand. Harry took the cloak from a reluctant Jonny and gave it back to Tavish.

Behind the desk, Robards said, "Good to see you, Will, Jonny. Sit or stand as you like."

Jonny was already edging back and forth along the back wall. Harry took one of the seats in front of the desk and concentrated on keeping his hands and legs still. Tavish sat down beside him.

"Hi sir."

"Have you visited Miss Elspeth since the raid, Will?"

Harry nodded. "I told her about what happened. She said we didn't mess anything up, and she liked hearing more about me and Jonny. She said most people get upset about some things more than me, but most people haven't lived like I have, and feelings are always okay even if they're different from other people's but sometimes you shouldn't act on them or should try to ask somebody first."

"You didn't do anything wrong, Will, you and Jonny did many things right," Robards said. Harry relaxed further hearing it from him. "We were wrong to put you in that situation; our intelligence didn't begin to cover what Macnair was really hiding. That's the last time we'll allow you out of more open areas with a suspect for many, many years, if you choose to continue working with us."

Harry nodded obediently in the pause. Robards flipped some papers on his desk.

"The issue that's come up is Macnair's friends higher up in the Ministry won't allow us to quietly lock him away."

Jonny stilled by the wall, a long, low hiss reverberating.

"We will lock him away," Robards said, holding a hand up. Harry breathed again. "But his friends aren't likely to be satisfied with just a written testament from you like before, Will. You may have to be present at his trial."

Harry tried to inhale and exhale at the same time and couldn't figure out which one was right. "Is that bad?"

"It's problematic." Robards folded his hands together and looked at Harry seriously. "Macnair was a Death Eater—with what we found in his house, there's no doubt of that conviction now. His friends will help keep his trial quiet, because they won't want it noticed if he's convicted, but they'll also try hard to get him off because it will look bad for them if they were friends with him then. So you'll likely be questioned about your and Jonny's parts in it—not that they'll be able to say either of you did anything wrong."

Harry waited to hear what the problem was then.

"There's a potion people sometimes take before they testify that only lets them tell the truth. Truthfully you're not Harry Potter. But it's very useful to us that people think you are. If you have to testify, word might spread of what we're doing."

Harry chewed on his lip. "Could I not take the potion?"

Robards sighed. "Normally, yes. But Harry Potter is an important name in our world. If you claim to be him, Macnair's friends will likely insist you take the potion first."

Harry chewed his lip more. After a moment Robards said, "The trial won't be for several weeks yet. We'll go through the procedures and what you do later, I just wanted to give you an idea what to expect. Do you have any questions, Will?"

"I think… no." Harry shook his head.

"Tavish will see you back then. Tavish, I'll expect that cloak signed in no later than when you've returned."

Tavish nodded in Robards' direction as they got up to leave. "Sure thing, boss."

Back in the pub, Harry sat quietly while Tavish filled in Savage and Jenkins on the upcoming trial and Harry's part in it. Jenkins listened, then squatted by Harry's side and said to him, "You know, Will… the adult dose of Veritaserum is unbeatable, but you're so small, you'll only get a third of that. Just think about it this way: when you're out with us, you are being Harry Potter. Just because it's not the name you were born with doesn't mean it's not yours some of the time."

Harry nodded, then slowly opened his mouth. "I am Harry Potter," he whispered. Nobody jumped or pointed at him or grabbed for him. Only Jenkins noticed and nodded back. "I am Harry Potter," Harry repeated, a little louder, and let out a huge, shaky breath. "I think I can say it."

But should he really—Harry Potter was just pretend now, and the aurors knew that, and the point of pretending was that nobody else knew that, so it should be okay to say who he was… but the times wizards had found Harry Potter before the aurors did stuck and churned in his gut. Those had been bad times, that made him so much gladder to be Will than just when he left the Dursleys…

"What if…" His voice gave out. He tried again, "Would that make more bad people… should I say I'm Harry but really Will—"

Cold suddenly clenched his chest. What if he couldn't say he was Will Jansen? Then everyone would know he wasn't pretending and whatever people wanted from Harry Potter they'd get—

"I wouldn't worry about second-guessing like that," Jenkins' voice broke through his increasing anxiety. "Robards is good at this sort of stuff, he wouldn't have made supervisor otherwise. You're already the best-protected kid in Great Britain, living with us. We'll look out for you, even while you're at school. And Robards—hell, maybe even Madame Bones—will probably have the trial transcript classified. So nobody will hear except whatever few people are in the room. And that'll be a very, very few—like Robards said, everyone who knows Macnair is going to dump him fast when it looks like he's headed to Azkaban. Robards will make sure enough of what we found leaks out beforehand that everyone will be sure he's sunk."

Jenkins smiled at Harry. Harry breathed, quietly, focused on Jonny's presence looming still and silent in a nearby corner, and let himself believe everything would be okay. It sounded scary, what was coming, but the aurors sounded like they would handle it and they'd been good about not putting Harry and Jonny in trouble. When they got out of Macnair's house a lot of the aurors had even said good on Jonny for what he'd done to the man, and they wished they could've done it instead.

.

"...As the witness is a minor, in protection of his rights I will now erect a privacy shield to prevent him hearing anyone's voice but mine until the antidote is given to him." The woman in front of Harry paused for second during which no one said anything, then waved her wand. The courtroom around them fuzzed behind a faint bluish mist.

"Tilt your chin up and stick out your tongue," she told him.

Harry obeyed. The night shift aurors had said the woman who was going to question him was very nice and they'd introduce him to her after the trial.

A touch of something either cold or wet hit his tongue. Harry automatically closed his mouth and swallowed. His head was floating—he almost reached up to feel if it was still there, but that was so much effort.

"What is your name?" a grownup's voice said. She sounded nicer than Aunt Petunia. And Aunt Petunia already knew his name.

"Which one?"

His chest moved a lot when he breathed. Uuuuuppp and doooowwnnn…

"What do you answer to?"

"Boy. Freak." His muscles were tight. "Harry. You—"

"Is your name Harry Potter?"

Wasn't it?

"Yes."

"Were you on Pickwick Street on the night of the eighth shortly after one o'clock?"

He wanted to say yes. Aunt Petunia never asked him things, just told and scolded.

"I think so."

"Why don't you know for certain?"

"I didn't look at a calendar."

"Did you meet the man identified here as Walden Macnair on Pickwick Street very late at night several weeks ago?"

"Yes."

The words went on, never loud, never mad. Harry thought he was being good when he answered. He might have napped a little in between words, they were so comfortable, but that must have been all right because nobody took them away or made him stop.

"Tilt your chin up and stick out your tongue."

Harry let the finger on his chin move his head and tap his lips open. Something cold or wet landed on his tongue. He snapped his mouth closed and blinked in surprise as he looked around. The courtroom stopped being blue.

"Did I finish?"

"Yes, you did. Go sit over there now until you're called again or court is adjourned."

Harry glanced around. There weren't many people in the room, but he didn't know most of them and Jonny was hiding nowhere near them. "Can I sit higher? I like being high."

"That's allowable."

Harry climbed up to the top row of seats and let out a little breath when he stayed alone and unattacked. Jonny lurked closer.

The woman called Tavish up to ask questions to him. Harry paid more attention than with the other people who'd gone since he understood more of what Tavish talked about.

Cloth rustled toward the end of Harry's bench. Jonny growled low on Harry's other side underneath the bench. Harry glanced up to see a very old-looking man in wizard robes, with a floppy hat and a white beard so long it was tucked into his belt, coming toward him. Harry hesitated. The stranger didn't look dangerous, and Jonny was right there.

The man sat down with a little space between them and looked down at the trial. Harry stared straight ahead and tried to look with the sides of his eyes anyway.

"My name is Albus Dumbledore," the man murmured. "I'm glad to meet you, my boy."

Harry was puzzled into glancing at him again. "I'm not anyone's boy."

The man sighed a little. Harry wondered if he should feel bad for making the old man look sad. "That term isn't always meant literally. Sometimes it marks affection."

That explained why his uncle only ever said it to Dudley, then. But why would the old man like Harry?

"You did very well on the witness stand. I believe you impressed several people with your maturity."

Harry looked ahead again and blinked. Jonny didn't want to attack, but Harry didn't understand why the old man was there.

Then he frowned and paid more attention to the talking below. Were they talking about him again? Why?

"It's an unusual situation you're in—a ward of the ministry, working for law enforcement."

Tavish was talking about Jonny. Harry squirmed, but there didn't seem to be a point in him trying to hide it since Tavish was having to explain.

"Are you happy, Harry?"

Harry looked back at the old man, a little thrown by the question. "I have a friend," he said slowly. "And… grownups care… I think that's happy."

The old man let out a long breath, so soft Harry almost couldn't hear it. "And you like it, working with the aurors? Living with them?"

Harry nodded. Except for occasional scary times like being in Macnair's house, he very much liked being with the aurors. It almost felt like having a family except without all the real parts that would have been bad because he wasn't anybody's family.

"I want to stay like this," he whispered. He knew more what that meant now than when he'd said it to Madame Bones.

"Well then." He wondered why the old man looked sad again. "I am glad you found a place better than where you came from, my boy, that can protect you. The friend you earned should become highly capable in that regard as it grows with you."

It sort of reassured Harry that in this magic world, despite how important Harry Potter sounded whenever the name came up, Jonny seemed to be even more special.

"Okay?" he guessed.

The old man might have sighed a little again, then stood up. His hand rested on top of Harry's head briefly. Harry breathed out hard so he didn't stiffen since Jonny still wasn't attacking.

"I wish you well, Harry."

Harry waited until the old man was out of the row and several rows down before he leaned down to share baffled looks with Jonny. That was the first time anyone that thought he was Harry Potter didn't seem to want something from him.

Maybe he just wasn't as desperate as the bad wizards. Maybe he'd be back later.

"Maybe we should sit with the aurors next time," Harry whispered.

Jonny hissed back.

.

"—I didn't know grownups get presents—" Harry wasn't sure whether to be shocked or thrilled that a tree had appeared overnight and some of what was under it was supposed to be for him.

Savage laughed. "Nah, grownups get drinks and throw gags at each other is all. You don't need to worry about that, Will, these saps are just trying to remember their childhoods by giving you things they liked. It's all okay. You don't even have to like any of it, most of 'em have terrible taste."

Lysah pulled out her wand and started hexing Savage, while someone yelled there better not be any spells except confetti near the tree, and someone else urged Harry to go ahead and grab something and see what it was.

Harry picked up a big brightly wrapped box and held it, then abruptly shoved it toward Jonny behind the tree. He pushed the next one to Tavish and the next to the person behind him. "There's too many, just tell me what they are!"

"Hey, hey, dibs on distribution! Lookit Alph, shiiiiny, what'll you give me… and one for you… put your arms up, catch!... one for you..."

Surrounded by the grownups' chatter, none of which required his input, Harry's breathlessness gradually steadied and even turned into occasional huffs of laughter. He took the box Greddie passed to him amidst the ones to everybody else. Wrapping paper tossed every which way kept crumpling into balls and getting fired around the room. Harry carefully peeled off the tape and unfolded the paper from the package in his lap. He touched the cloth inside, then stroked it absently while he mouthed his way through the thin loopy handwriting on the card.

_This should come in great use to you, young Harry. I apologize for not sending it sooner, but could not resist the sentiment of contributing to what I hope is a very happy Christmas for you._

"Who's that from, Will?"

He squinted at the signature, which was even loopier than the rest of the note. "Somebody swirly."

He surrendered the card to the first outstretched hand in favor of examining whatever he'd been given. A dark blue cloak—he already had a cloak, and Jonny did too, but Finn said some cloaks were made for cold, and some for rain, and some for warm rain, and some for really really cold… was this a light one or a heavy one?

Shouts went up when he pulled it on.

"Invisible! Merlin's ducks, who gave Will an invisibility—"

Someone else crowed, "Dumbledore! My god, Will, you're the best, you convinced _Albus Dumbledore_—"

"Great!" Harry pulled off the cloak and held it out to Jonny. Jonny snatched it and disappeared in one motion.

"Ah hell, you realize what you just did, Will?" Jenkins complained. "Now there's going to be 'it wasn't me' responsible for toe-treading, and spilling drinks, and goosing—" He paused. "Actually—"

"Goose this, berk!" One of the women shot a hex at him. Someone yelled about confetti again.

Tavish squatted beside Harry, grinning, with the card that came with the cloak in hand. He gave it back to Harry. "Albus Dumbledore's a big man, you know. If he's decided you're Harry Potter, you're set. I won't be surprised if you get Harry's Hogwarts letter now."

Harry glanced down at the card. "Does that mean I'll have to use it—?"

"We can work that out later—you're Willem Jansen legally, no matter what people think is your birth name; there's no reason you can't stay Will even at Hogwarts. The 'secret' might come out there at some point, Macnair's friends have kids that'll be around your age…"

Harry giggled a little, unpracticed, at the way Tavish wiggled his eyebrows when he said 'secret,' then sobered. "What if I don't want to go to Hogwarts?"

"You don't have to. Yeah, it might be easier to avoid Death Eaters' kids, but you'd be letting them make you miss out on a lot. Director Bones has a kid around your age, and so do some of the aurors—and you can trust Dumbledore will look out for you. But you have plenty of time to think about it."

How Jonny would like a boarding school concerned Harry more than Dumbledore did, but the old man did still leave him uneasy. "Do you think he really thinks I am Harry Potter?"

Tavish looked thoughtful. "Honestly, if Dumbledore's willing to call you Harry, then I think he's going to go along with us that you're the best Harry Potter we've got. It's a tough sell to fool him, and he has enough authority to find your records with your real name on them if he looks. I think you can count on him not to give you a hard time."

"Then he won't take me away?"

Harry hadn't rested easy on the lie-that-really-wasn't since the trial, especially when he kept hearing about Dumbledore sounding like a Very Important Person. Harry really wanted to stay Will.

Tavish squeezed him in a one-armed hug. "Like hell. You're all ours, Mascot—and he gave you a sodding invisibility cloak, I think that's indirect approval of your life choices." He grinned down, then looked stern. "Although really. If your partner takes an interest in pranking into his head now—"

Harry glanced around to where Jenkins was still getting randomly hexed by different people. Jonny was already moving around the room a little now that he was really unseen instead of just unnoticed while he was still. "Then… it was somebody else?"

Tavish laughed. "You know what? It was Savage. Definitely."

Harry grinned a little back. He set the empty box and wrapping paper aside and looked under the tree. Greddie had moved off distributing presents to people who hadn't clustered around, but there were still boxes left… some of them might be for Harry. Presents for Harry.

He took a deep breath, grabbed a box, and passed it to Tavish.

Tavish glanced down at it. "This one's for you."

"You open it." Harry picked up another box with his name on it.

"Okay. If it's a model broom, I want to you know I'm claiming first course with it. And if it's a model broom from Jenkins, I'll show you how to set the slope extra steep on the one I got you so you can beat his sending them down the stairs. When you get really good you can launch them over people's heads."

Harry opened his box and lifted out what looked like a tangle of strings. He considered asking what it was.

"How does this work?"

"Ah, let me show you…"

By the end of the night, Jonny had tried eggnog instead of just blood and glided around a lot draped in fairy lights on top of the invisibility cloak which he kept not turning on until he was right in front of a person who wasn't paying attention. Harry had more things than he'd ever imagined in his life or could possibly fit in his backpack and had given over half of them to Stagehand, who, despite Finn's warning that house elves usually didn't play much, proved willing and very good at model broom races. Most of the grownups had either gone somewhere else or fallen asleep when Harry crept upstairs and flopped onto his bed.

Stagehand lit his candle in the middle of a blink. Harry smiled as he rolled onto his side and curled up around his pillow.

He wondered if his aunt and uncle and cousin had enjoyed Christmas more without him. They always said they would. Harry had never thought to imagine Christmas without them.

Jonny crept into the room with a clink of discarded fairy lights and pulled the closet door open, grumbling softly to himself. Harry wondered if he even planned to sleep in the new invisibility cloak.

He pulled the cover over his head and closed his eyes. He didn't really care about Christmas—or understand it, much—but he was glad he'd been brave enough, and scared enough, to run away from his old home. Compared to Privet Drive, he was pretty sure he must have told Dumbledore the truth. This was happy.

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A/N: Thus ends the tale of Harry and Jonny. I believe the original inspiration for this fic was a few stories here involving the idea of 'Harry finds an injured Animagus while at Privet Drive'... and then evolved from there. I wound up with several aims when I was working on this story: to show an abused child without showing the abuse (and to show different specific instances than I've seen in other fics); to show the longterm effects of that kind of treatment; and to write it a little bit melancholy, a little bit fairy tale. I ended up satisfied enough to call it done and post it, but I'd be glad to know what you think. Hope you enjoyed the read.


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